


In Another Time

by FuneralCake



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Fix It, God Percy, M/M, No HoO, Post TLO, Reincarnated Luke, Reincarnation, Second Chances, friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23771848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuneralCake/pseuds/FuneralCake
Summary: The war claimed many lives, and those it left behind weren't that much better off. But they rebuilt. They moved on.Percy built a better world for half bloods. One Luke would be proud of. And he spent the rest of his immortal days caring for the heroes under his domain. It was the least he could do.He was content to live that way. Content to keep teaching and guiding and protecting his demigod charges. Then Nico appears with news that would change Percy's immortal life.
Relationships: Luke Castellan/Percy Jackson, Nico di Angelo & Percy Jackson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 248





	In Another Time

There was a time, when the world wasn't like this. Where the gods were distant, and their children, spiteful. Where the world seemed so wide and every breath taken seemed on edge. Where war after war was brewing and life after life was taken.

There was a time when Percy didn't know grief. When the most of his worries was getting kicked out of another school. Where he missed a man he didn't know and hated himself for it. Some days Percy wondered what it would have been like, if he had never known.

He'd probably have died though. He'd have been robbed of the opportunities to learn. To grow. Don't they say, that it's better to have loved and lost, then to never have had loved at all?

This way he had saved as much as he can. Had fought for those he could not. Had grieved, for those he had failed. And even now, a decade and a half later, he still did.

He was known to most as Perseus now. His comrades who stood by him through the final battle call him by his full name, and with every new camper that arrived they would retell his tales and though he felt embarrassed at first, slowly his legend grew. He had lost many of his family as the years went. Some to die heroes deaths in great quests, and others to more peaceful journeys out into the world to try and live proper lives.

He had seen people come and go as he watched over the camp. Had lead, mentored, guided, saved and laid to rest many of the heroes he had taken in.

They were his. Under his domain. He wondered why it took this long, for a god of heroes to be found but he was glad it was his job. Just as much as he was glad to be god of the shifting tides. Of change. Olympus needed it. Immortals were stagnant, unmoving by nature and he was here to balance that.

He had made camp a better place. Had the gods claiming their children early on. Even made cabins for the minor gods.

There would no longer be unrest. No unclaimed to grow bitter. No children who would feel left behind. They wouldn't have resentful Dionysus watching over them. They'd have him. Someone they can approach. Who would do his best to guide them.

There would be no Lukes this time around. Never again. Once was enough.

To this day, he mourned the boy who grew to be a bitter man. Mourned how things could have gone better if Zeus hadn't acted the way he did. In the end Luke was a victim. A hero. And Percy mourned the man he never got to know more.

He wished he had met Luke earlier. Had known him better. Had been there for him. Because maybe then they wouldn't have lost him to his anger. Because all those years spent chasing after him, trying to end the war, Percy had done nothing but try to understand the other boy. The man who could have very easily been Percy.

\-------------

Their swords clang. He hears the demigod in front of him, a daughter of athena, panting. He sees her limbs begin to quiver, her steps beginning to lag and falter. It had been a solid 30 mins of battle and she had done well trying to last against him in the ring.

He honestly enjoyed it. Never in his wildest dreams did he think he'd enjoy teaching but here he was, trying to impart what he could to the children, _his children_ before he sent them out to the world.

He disarms her, and to this day it still makes grief pool in his chest. He remembers the person who taught him, the person he first used it on, and it makes his heart ache something fierce even as he praised the demigoddess and tell her to take a break.

"Percy." He knows that voice. He turns around and hugs the man who gives him a sad smile, as if he knows what Percy's feeling. Maybe he does. If anyone will it will be him after all.

"Nico," he pulls away to give a good look at the son of Hades who had grown up into a fine man. Strong and dependable, mellowed out with age. He had learned to put aside his hate. To let it go. To forgive Percy and most importantly, to forgive himself.

Nico still looked thin compared to Percy. Wiry and pale where Percy was built like an athlete and had the tan to match it. The ghost king had been learning to spend as much time in the surface as he did in the underworld, choosing to keep his father company during the days Persephone was in the surface.

Even as immortals, Nico and Persephone were still awkward around each other. Such was the way with step mothers. Percy would know. He still didn't like visiting his father in Atlantis when Ampithrite was there after all.

"What brings you to the surface? I wasn't expecting you around till early fall," He asks his cousin, grinning broadly.

"He's left." Nico tells him, and it confuses Percy. There are dozens of "he's" Nico could be referring to after all. "He went for rebirth, Perce. He's left."

Oh. _Oh._ He meant that _he._

"Are you sure?" Percy asked for the sake of asking, trying to appear like he wasn't suffocating from the idea. He knew Nico wouldn't tell him this if the other wasn't sure. Nico knew how important this was.

_A life time ago they talked and talked and talked. About the war, about each other. About Bianca and about everything they had done away from each other. They talked about grief and hatred. About love. They had talked, and understood and grieved together and come out of it stronger. Better._

Nico gives him an unimpressed look in response, cutting through all of Percy's bullshit because he knew Percy. Knew him like the back of his hand and would never say anything about Luke if he wasn't sure.

"Will you look for him?" Nico asked instead and it makes Percy gulp. He can face down a god. Face down a titan. He could fight armies of monsters with ease. But facing Luke, felt a little too much like facing failure and old guilts and grief he thought he had moved on from. 

He realizes, he is afraid.

He's afraid of looking for Luke. Looking for someone who wouldn't know how Percy failed him. Who wouldn't understand how Percy felt, _which, given that Percy himself didn't understand it, is totally expected._ He is afraid of Luke who wouldn't remember. Is equally afraid if he would. He is terrified. Of Luke.

"What happens will happen," Percy decides, because he knows at the end of the day that there's no use looking for someone who is probably a mere infant at this point. Who wouldn't recognize Percy and whom he probably wouldn't recognize. He isn't the god of spirits here after all.

At that realization he turns to look at the other immortal in front of him. "Will you recognize him, Nico? Will you know that it's him, if we meet him." The look he gets in response is a very offended 'duh' and it makes him laugh.

"Wanna crash my mom's place and see if she'd feed us?"

\-----------------

Years pass and while Percy doesn't actively go searching for Luke, it doesn't leave his thoughts either. He looks at Nico everytime he visits, checks to see if he recognizes Luke in any of the children in camp. The other treats him with exasperated resignation everytime, but indulges Percy nonetheless.

Percy doesn't know if he is relieved or disappointed when they come up negative every single time.

\------------------

He was so sure Luke would come to camp halfblood, that he is entirely flat footed when they finally do meet. It has been 16 years since the faithful day Nico told him of Luke's rebirth. Sixteen years of watching and waiting and wondering if maybe something had happened. If he had been killed by a monster before he could get under the protection of Camp.

Percy had decided to wander the streets of Manhattan. The world that slept on through a war. He didn't know why, he just really craved croissants that day and thought he'd look for some instead of asking the nymphs to make it.

In hindsight it was obvious that the fates were being meddlesome again, but Percy couldn't say he minded this once.

Not when he enters a random cafe, having chosen this one on whim, only to find him.

The scar was gone but he had the same blue eyes. The same sandy blonde hair and upturned eyebrows. Mischievous, even when they were blown wide in panic as he tried to furiously wipe the coffee he had spilled off of Percy's coat.

"Hey," Percy cuts off the other's apologies, and when the other looks up to meet his eyes, he feels his chest choke up a little. "It's fine."

"This is gonna sound really cheesy but, do I know you from somewhere? You look really familiar uh.." It makes Percy's heart clench even as he offers a name. He fights the urge to swallow when Luke repeats it, his name rolling off of the other's tongue with ease.

"I'm Luke. Can I get you coffee, Percy? As an apology for..." He makes an open gesture and Percy couldn't help but grin. It feels so weird, seeing Luke this flustered. Like the tables had been turned.

"You know what? Sure Luke, why not."

They end up exchanging numbers, (he has a HermesPhone. All the gods do and it's leagues better than what any of the humans could come up with,) and Nico finds him hours later curled up under the canoe lake having a panic attack.

**Author's Note:**

> This idea wouldn't leave my mind. I had to write it down... So I ended up with this oneshot. I might add another oneshot after this, to show Luke remembering, or Percy wooing him or something. Maybe. I don't know.


End file.
